Seagate Technology plc today introduced the latest addition to the company's business storage product offerings, Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS. Designed for offices or workgroups with up to 50 employees, this new 4-bay NAS centralizes storage to allow access, collaboration and sharing of files securely from all computers within a business network, while simultaneously hosting PC backups in one central location.

"Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 introduces groundbreaking new storage functionality for organizations of all sizes, and the Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS takes advantage of these advances to serve the growing demand from small- and medium-sized businesses," said Brian Hillger, director, product marketing, Microsoft. "We are happy to have collaborated with Seagate in developing a NAS solution that integrates into existing server infrastructures."

Seamless Windows Integration
Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS makes it easy to expand into a branch office or add local storage to an existing network because it's designed specifically for businesses utilizing an existing Windows IT infrastructure. With native support for Active Directory, management of users is easy with simple setup through an existing directory instead of the manual entry of users for access and control on each device. Perfect for the IT pro, the Windows Storage server seamlessly integrates into existing Windows environments, including complete compatibility with Active Directory.

"Seagate takes great pride in our ability to develop specialized solutions for a wide-range of business storage use cases," said Scott Horn vice president of global marketing for Seagate. "As businesses grow, they will need a simple way to seamlessly integrate more storage capacity within their existing business applications. The new Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS provides a reliable yet simple data management and data protection solution for these fast-growing small business customers."

"Growing small businesses demand dependability and security for their data storage, backups and transactions," said Richard Doherty, research director for The Envisioneering Group. "Seagate's employment of Windows Server 2012 in the company's latest addition to their new Business Storage portfolio delivers on these storage demands that are so central to the growth of small businesses."

Performance at a Value
The Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS delivers on performance at an affordable price point for small to medium businesses.

Featuring best in class hard drives optimized for NAS to support customized error recovery controls, specialized power management and vibration tolerance for optimum performance and reliability, Seagate NAS HDD drives provide the best performing high-capacity storage for NAS servers.

Support for third-party Windows Server add-ins allows a business to do even more with a Windows Server enabling the 4-bay NAS to be customized for specific business needs. Additionally, Seagate has developed and included System Monitoring software that simplifies management by integrating the most common tasks into a single interface. Plus, the built-in support for iSCSI enables maximum performance and compatibility for virtualized environments.

"HDD manufacturers, such as Seagate, are uniquely positioned in the SMB NAS market given their expertise to integrated workload-optimized HDDs into a multi-bay Windows Storage Server device," stated Mark Geenen, president of TRENDFOCUS. "Seagate's NAS-specific HDDs include datacenter-class features tuned for smaller multi-drive racks, ensuring high performance, reliability and affordability for a wide range of small and medium business environments."

Pricing and Availability
Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS comes in a range of capacities from 8 TB for $1599.99 MSRP to a high capacity 16 TB for $1999.99 MSRP to meet the needs of IT professionals with existing Windows Servers systems deployed.